


Beauty Is Not Gold

by tambrathegreat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Post - Deathly Hallows, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:52:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tambrathegreat/pseuds/tambrathegreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two seperate views of one afternoon as told by Severus Snape and Ron Weasley.  </p>
<p>This story was done for the 1,2,3 Challenge on the HPFF Forum on this site. My numbers were: 25, 25 and 25, my prompt was, "Severus Snape challenges Severus Snape." And honestly, this story started out as a Snape/Harry gen fic, and then this happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Severus Snape

**Author's Note:**

> Standard disclaimers apply.
> 
> This chapter was red-moused by Jilliane.

_Beauty is not gold._ That was the old saw my mother said to me the first time I came home from, Muggle school crying about my looks, my jumble-sale clothes, and my unhygienic body. I was forever annoyed by that statement. It's not as if we had the gold either. Father was on a continuous downward spiral between the dole, shift work when he could get it, and the pub. So, I supposed if there was no beauty in my person and no gold to be had, I must simply live by my brains.

I did, and that large organ landed me in more trouble than anyone dreamt I could find. Not that mother didn't attempt to warn me. She did in her wan, defeated way. By the time I came home with my love lost forever because she was married to my enemy, and the Mark on my arm, it was well and truly too late.

And then Lily died, and you know the boring, mawkish rest of the story: The years of service to Dumbledore ultimately ending in his murder, my death and then rebirth were all things that mother could have never foreseen growing from that one simple statement of fact. _Beauty is not gold._

Now, I sit here in my dilapidated house, expecting the arrival of one Harry Potter and his ever-present accusatory stare. I await it with both dread and a strange kind of anticipation.

I have challenged myself to keep my temper in the face of his youthful innocence. I have challenged myself to give into his blandishments about the need to move on, away from the past, and towards the future. He is the reincarnation of Albus Dumbledore, less the colourful robes, and deceptively simple wisdom.

If only I could tell Potter what I really think, if only I could say to him, "You are not your father. You are not your mother. To me, Mr. Potter, you are just an irritant, and one I have to endure no longer." 

But, alas, I cannot. In some way, I owe him as much as he owes me. And that cosmic ledger on which our lives have been written will never be balanced. We are intertwined in such a way as to make it impossible to separate ourselves from one another. It is because of him that I am free and because of me that he still lives. Check and balance, yet nothing paid in full.

I start when I hear the knock on my peeling door, not the type I expected. Potter's knock should be loud, bold, daring. This one is tentative, soft, and if a sound can be described as such, graceful in its precision.

I stride to the door and throw it open in my best Dickensian-heavy imitation, only to see the one face that might bring my ire to the fore even more than Potter's cheeky visage. It is Weasley. He carries a basket, no doubt a tribute from his parents. Ronald Bilius Weasley could never have brought himself to be so thoughtful, especially of me. He lifts his gaze to mine, his expression diffident. "Mum thought you might need some care."

I see the shaking of his hands. I recognise it as battle fatigue that strikes him even a month after the war's end. It will be with him for years if not forever. I know that particular brand of stress. It wakes me at night, sends me to my labs, my books, or the pub. It surprises me, the black look he shoots me as he notices me noticing him.

"Well?" Weasley lifts the basket, waggling it in front of my face, and I catch the scent of bangers, pastry, sweets, and young male sweat. It is a homey smell, and not at all one that has graced this shack, not since my mother died and I was left under the tender mercies of my bastard father that last summer I was in this house. I bite back the retort on my lips and step aside. Molly, for all her intrusive ways, has always been fair to me.

Weasley enters with a slouching of his shoulders. He looks defeated. "Where d'you want this?"

I point to the kitchen, a drab area with little resemblance to anything but a charnel house. It is where I killed my last putative compatriot, and still reeks of Death Eater blood, guts, and gory sundries. I have not entered that room since I returned to this dismal corner of England to find one of the Lestrange cousins lying in wait. The Aurors carted the body away and left the rest for me to clean. I have seen too much of death, and I cannot face the room, even now. I hear Weasley draw in a breath, and I follow reluctantly, wanting to see what his reaction is to my living situation. He stares at the flecks of brown, of grey, and of bone white that were splattered across the room in the fight I encountered to save my worthless hide, the second time that fateful day of the Final Battle.

I smirk at his back until I hear the ragged breath torn from his throat, until I see the straightening resolve in the line of his shoulders. He places the basket outside the door on the back step that had served as a cooler in my younger, hungrier days. He turns to me, his face averted, downcast as he says, "You need some help."

It is a mere statement of fact. Now I do have the impetus to bellow at him, but the smooth line of his cheek as the sun caresses it through the torn window shade draws my attention first. He is still impossibly young, moderately untouched.

I remember what I was at that age and I ache for what we've both seen. I answer without thought, "Yes."

Weeks go by, and every morning, there is Weasley, or Ronald as I have come to call him in my unguarded moments. He always carries a basket and his ragged trainers scuff the dusty floor as I bid him to enter. He helps mostly with his brawn, his silence, and the evidence of his own pain. I don't know why. I could not abide the boy when he was part of the unholy trio, and he had felt the same for me I thought. I gather, after some days, that all is not well between Weasley and the other two. I never ask. It is neither my desire to be drawn into the drama nor to enquire personally about his liaison with the Granger girl. He is, whilst he is here, an anachronism, a creature out of place and time. That state suits me.

I see our kinship in our tatty robes and our willingness to work. I admire the graceful arc of his brows, the reverent way he treats my meagre possessions, those left after the Ministry seized my Darker collection. I realise, with a startling bit of clarity, that he sees the same in me. Over time we have become, if not friends, at least uneasy allies in this war we wage on filth. despair, and shaking hands.

But I do ask one day, "So, Potter sent you to take care of me? He couldn't be arsed to do it himself?"

Weasley, who has been dusting bent over, arse in the air, straightens, the long muscles in his back straining his shirt. "Naw. I came on my own. Harry... he didn't want you to have... he knows he makes you uncomfortable, what with... so..."

Weasley shrugs, the collar of his shirt pushing his longer than fashionable hair up in the back, rilling it as if fingers have combed through it at his nape. My fingers ache to do the same. I have a definite fondness for ginger. His hair is not red all over, I notice, more a copper where the sun has not bleached it, a semiprecious metal, a useful one. I lift my hand and drop it. I am aware of my own failings, my own Haephestan darkness next to his Apollonian brilliance.

I feel unaccountably comforted and at the same time irritated by Weasley's presumption. I open my mouth to speak, to rend him, to destroy whatever strange feelings that have arisen over him in the past weeks. If he is young and fresh, then I am ancient and unworthy. It is a straightforward and cold equation.

Weasley turns to me, his hands out in supplication, in questing need. "Sir... Severus... I want... no, I need..."

And that is when it happens, where gold and beauty do not matter as he strides to me and in one moment, shatters my world-view of Weasleys in general and this one in particular. He grabs me my by my dark robes, I still wear the unrelieved black of mourning, and his mouth crashes down on mine. Soon, we are mired in loosened cloth and questing hands, both moaning our need and desire. I take him there in the dust of my childhood home, and he keens his pleasure, this man-boy who is so unlike and yet so like me.

When all is finished, he doesn't cling, he merely pulls up his pants and trousers and gives me a complicit smile as he turns back to cleaning. I watch, not knowing how to proceed. He is a boy and I am ancient. I should damn myself, but am too shaken by the moment to think much beyond the burning in my thighs and the aches elsewhere. It is a good kind of pain, cleansing in its presence. I ask, to cover my own shock at the actions of us both, "What of Miss Granger?"

Weasley shrugs again. "What of her? We're friends, nothing more. It's not her I want."

I am awash in desire once more, still perplexed by the nettling feel of it in my body. I pull down my robes, attempt to draw the cold veneer that I have used for so many years to cover my needs and deep longing. I want to be loved, but I am a man who has played a role for so long that it surprises me that Weasley could break through the hard carapace I have erected to see my heart's desire. He has, and it frightens me. I lash out, "I never asked you to do... what we just did. I never wanted anyone..." besides Lily, my flower, my first love... "to shag me out of pity."

I have my pride, broken though it is, and I wear it like quixotic armour.

Weasley chuckles, not the reaction I expected, and I rise up, my tarnished hubris clanging about me useless and tattered. Before I can flay him for his mirth, he says, "I'm not in the habit of having men up my arse out of some misguided sense of duty or pity. I wanted you. It's that simple." I reel as he says, "I hope we can do it again. You were good at it. I thought you might be."

He turns back to the dusting, his pale torso gleaming in the grime. Spinners End has never been a place that engenders hope for me, yet now that I see him, _my_ Weasley, I feel the emotion germinate in my chest, spill out through the dingy rooms. Ronald pauses in his duties, "Well, are you going to stare at me like a lump, or are you going to help? I would like to at least get the parlour done before I have to leave."

"Don't go," I say, my voice croaking over the words trying not to sound as if I'm pleading, knowing the tone is there.

"I won't be gone forever, just 'til tomorrow," he answers, "I need to get a few things if I'm going to stay the night or... longer." His swift blush and defensive stance at his presumption heartens me. He is on no crusade to save an old and bitter bastard. "I hope you don't mind."

I shake my head, not wanting to ruin the moment with my brambled, spiky words.

We work in silence after that, the hours wearing on comfortably. When I happen to spy him, my breath catches with the stirrings of (love?) lust. When it is time for him to leave, he kisses me and then laughs, "You're not half-bad to look at, not half-bad at all once you get out of those undertaker robes."

"I am..." I wince, not wanting to let this obviously blind boy know that I am ugly, unlovable, and needy. "Not much."

"Mum told me once that beauty wasn't gold,' he says as he runs his hand down my shadowed cheek, his fingertips straying over my lips. "I think you're gold, Professor. I don't much care about the rest."

"It's Severus," I say with lips held stiff from the need to suppress my desire. I quiver with want under my façade. "Ronald, after what we just did... what I want... I am Severus."

"Yeah," he answers. He brushes his lips over mine, a phantom caress. I am pleased by the pink that stains his cheeks, the sigil of his youth. "Tomorrow then."

He leaves whistling a shrill, tuneless scrap of song. I close the door after I hear him Apparate, trying to steady my shaking hands, ease my trembling heart.

I wonder if mother, when she told me that axiom, if she knew the events that would unfold today? She never claimed to be a seer, but there were many predictions she made that were right.

I say it aloud, just to break the buzzing silence of the room, "Beauty is not gold."

I return to cleaning. There is no need to waste time in the mundane when I might spend the next days in more satisfying pursuits.


	2. Ron Weasley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron's view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was red-moused by Jilliane.

I don't know what he thinks of me. Hell, I don't even know what I think of myself most days. Everyday for the past fortnight or so, he's let me in with a scowl and that jerk of his head that he does. On my better days, I take the gesture for what it is, an acknowledgement of an unwelcome, if useful, guest. On my bad days, it comforts me somehow to see at least one person hasn't changed. I get the feeling that Snape was always fucked up, so there was nothing to ruin in him.

I saw things during the war, bad things that no one should have to remember, but everyone should know about. When I spent that time away from Harry and Hermione during the hunt, it was the first time I had ever been alone, the first time I had to fend for myself. It changes a bloke to see how ill-equipped they are to meet the big wide world. No mum shouting to remember your rubbers because it's raining , no brothers egging you on to a broken bone and a wicked sense of accomplishment, and no dad there to pick you up when you fall or tell you good job when you deserve it. Just you and a bunch of Death Eater scum chasing you. It was bad, but not as bad as it could have been, I suppose.

I could have ended up dead like Fred, or wanting to be, like George. I could have ended up like Snape.

Today is a bad day for both of us, I guess. I can feel his eyes boring into my back, can sense the heat of that black stare. Sometimes he reminds me of an adder, sometimes he reminds me of myself. He's dangerous like that, and a miserable git to boot, but he's also been there and back.

I curse as I heft a box from the upstairs bedroom. He won't allow me to levitate anything from this room. Says it's too valuable. I think he just likes to see me uncomfortable. I feel a trickle of sweat running between my shoulder blades. It will itch later, but I don't dare take off my shirt. This is Snape's house, and since he's locked up like Malfoy's vault in Gringotts, with his formal black robes and his old fashioned boots, I decide I should at least have some couth.

That's my new word for the day. I'm trying to improve myself, you see.

I caught Hermione talking to Harry the other day. They don't know I heard them, and so they were discussing things freely. She thinks I'm stupid, oafish, and ever so slightly like Hagrid's Fang when I eat. Harry made some noise to tell her to give me a chance, but it was half-hearted at best. I know he doesn't feel the same way she does, but he's got his own problems. Hermione just sniffed at him and reminded him of something that happened when they were in the Forest of Dean before she went back to elucidating (another new word) my faults. On the whole, I'd say the bloom has gone from the rose as far as me and Hermione go. Not that I mind too much. Things just don't see the same since that time with the Egyptian bloke...

I won't think of that. I won't. It still hurts too much to remember. I never even caught his real name. Not that it matters much now anyway. He's been dead and mouldering in that shallow grave I dug for him for at least seven months.

I can feel the wobbly way my knees go down the stairs, I can feel the stupid way my chin shakes as I bite my lip to keep from screaming.

It's going to be a long day, and I have too many memories rattling about in my skull. If I work myself near half to death, maybe they'll quit swirling around so that I can get some rest, or at least close my eyes and not see what they did to him, and what his death saved me from. I want to sick up, and a little acid rushes up my throat before I swallow the urge back down. I won't think on it again, at least not today.

I've been watching Snape from the corner of my eye for the past hour. He's been looking at the way I bend (the way I'm bent! Ha! Ha!). I can smell the sweet and bitter smell of him as he sweats in those ridiculous woollen robes. An image strays into my head of my hands parting his robes, my tongue in his mouth, more than a little frotting over our clothes, and a hell of a lot more action as I unbutton his fly. He doesn't look like the pants type to me, and I can just picture his cock; purple and hot, flopping out onto my waiting lips. My cock stirs and I try to picture anything that will make me not want him right now.

I wasn't always gay. Well, I'm still not. I'm more an equal opportunity shagger. My first time with a girl was with Lavender, but she wasn't my first leg over. No, that honour went to Seamus Finnigan. I'm still not sure how it happened. One minute we were studying on his bed, the next minute, I'm being rogered by him, and well. At first we played it off like we were just two randy blokes getting our nuts off, but after about the fifth time we met in the showers, late at night, sucking each other off, shagging like bunnies, we admitted we might be a little bent, the both of us. Of course, it wasn't Finnigan who had the cock up his arsehole most times, so it was easier for him. It took me a while longer, and a pregnancy scare with Lavender, before I would say yeah, I'm a part-time shirt lifter. Now it doesn't bother me. Blokes are easier for me to deal with right now, with the added benefit of no little Weasley spawn scares. With everything else wrong with me, I don't need a little ginger blighter running around. Who knows what I'll want ten years from now?

I watch the sun's progress in the sky, through the fly-specked windows. I leave every night. There's never been any question of me staying, but I don't really want to leave. It's being around him that makes me forget for a while. I know I'm good for him too. He's gained weight since I've been coming over with my mum's food baskets. Sometimes I think that's the only reason he lets me in, those baskets. Oh, and that I cleaned his kitchen.

I haven't asked what happened in there. I don't know anything other than the obvious; that Snape gutted some Death Eater like a pig at the knacker's. I don't ask him about things like that, and he doesn't ask me about why I have tears on my face, or why my hands shake sometimes. We're both better off not knowing, I think. Maybe. I am surprised though. He said something about the Aurors responding to take the body away. I wonder why they didn't send in a cleaning team like they did for Grimmauld Place. I guess the greasy git isn't as popular a figure as the Boy Who Lived. Of course, Snape probably terrorised the whole generation of Aurors that are left after the war, so they probably viewed his little problem as payback. It didn't seem fair to me, either way.

I know I was never a fan of his. Really, it was more because of Harry than myself. I always hated school, and it showed. Snape had every right to be snarky and cold with me, though at times it hurt. But Harry, and even Hermione, didn't deserve what he dished out. I glare at his back for a minute, trying to get the outrage over my friends out of my system. Soon, I'm back to sorting through the books.

Once I finish the box, Snape says, "Weasley, it's time for lunch. Come."

He glides out of the room, his robes sweeping the dusty floor. He's like clockwork, that one. I'd say he's barmy keeping the Hogwarts schedule like he does, but then I'd have to deny the grumbling of my own stomach and my own little quirks. I've always hated to have my food separate. It looks lonely if it's not all mashed together. I've always enjoyed strawberries dipped in Nutella when there's pumpernickel bread to go with it. I always tear off the crusts of my bread when I have a sandwich so I can ball them up and eat them on the side. And those are just the food issues. There's that whole other realm of phobia about spiders. They just make my skin crawl.

Really, Snape's schedule isn't so barmy when you look at all the things I do.

I follow Snape into the kitchen. It's a nice, pale blue now. I painted it last week to cover the stains. There are just some things that can't come clean, no matter how many cleaning charms or how much Muggle bleach you use.

Snape is sifting through the basket. He spies his bangers and the mash Mum's put in for him. I lean against the counter that the basket is on and stretch. I feel my shirt lift a bit, and see Snape's sharp-eyed gaze at the expanse of skin and light smattering of ginger hair that twines down my belly and into my trousers. His expression doesn't change, but there's an aura around him, as if he's been lit up by that Muggle electricity. If I didn't see him lick his lips before he turned back to the basket, I might have missed the moment. He wants me probably as much as I've begun to want him. Just to test the waters, I inch my shirt up a fraction, rubbing my thumb over the button of my trousers, as if I were going to pop it open. Snape's eyes follow the action. He is still as I do it, and then his mask slips over his face as he turns his attention back to the basket. I wonder if I've pushed him too far, so to cover my confusion I tell him, "There's mushy peas too. Mum knows how much you like them."

He retreats to the table in silence. He probably won't speak for the rest of the day.

&*&*&

I think I might be going mad. Not the barking kind that would land me in a soft little room in hospital. Nothing is ever that clean cut with me. No, I've spent the last the weekend holed up in my room, wanking myself raw from just that look that Severus gave me over the mushy peas and mash. I don't know if Snape's grown more attractive or if I've lost my eyesight, but just seeing him look at me like he wanted to make a pudding of me right there in the kitchen has me flogging the old log.

 _Damn, damn, damn my cock and it's tiny, self-hardening little brain._

And how's this for going round the twist? When I was rubbing holes in my cock this weekend, that old saying that my mum used to spout about beauty not being gold kept playing over and over in my head. I suppose it's an apt statement for Snape. I mean, he's never been the best looking bloke. That old saw about a face only a mother could love? It suits him from what I've seen of him as a boy. He has loads of photos of him laying about the house. I nipped one to look at and now it's in my wallet. I like seeing him less stoic, a little more innocent, even if he still looks the same. And there's something about him that has me wanting to see him get off. Merlin knows, I've got myself off enough times this weekend thinking about it.

Merlin in a tutu! He's staring at like he wants to eat me with a spoon again. He asks, "So, Potter sent you to take care of me? He couldn't be arsed to do it himself?"

I mouth some words about how uncomfortable Harry knows he makes Snape. He swallows that whole, and as I'm turning back to the box of books he's set me to righting, I see his hand rise and then fall back to his side.

That's all the encouragement I need to tell him I want him, not articulately mind. No smooth talk from Ron Weasley. I see his face go from that pained sadness to mocking. My body is telling me to do something, anything to get him to touch me, to break through that hardness he's embalmed himself in. I want to love him, even if it's only for the time we fuck. He needs that. I take a step toward him, and before I know it, I've got his face between my hands and I'm kissing him. His hands flutter up to my wrists, trapping them as I deepen the contact. Soon, he lets go of them, and I find myself pulling his robes apart, almost tearing them in my haste to get to the goods. He's pulling layers of Weasley history off me too, and soon we're both exposed, panting with the effort.

When I pull back to see his pale body, I notice the self control he's using not to flinch away from my gaze. I run my hands over his skin, feeling the scars, both curse and other, on him. I kneel before him and give them the attention they deserve. I laugh shakily as I look up at him, "I'm going to kiss it and make it all better."

I run my lips over the hurts inflicted by so many, and find myself murmuring over them. I don't know if what I'm saying is a spell, a prayer or an imprecation (new word again, sorry.) Soon enough he's as relaxed as a bloke strung as tight as he is can be.

I get to the fastener on his trousers, and suddenly we're a tangle of limbs, teeth, and tongues. He takes me there on the floor.

His cock is big. It's much bigger than Seamus ever thought of being, the runty Irish bastard. It's shorter than the Egyptian bloke's, but twice as thick. Snape tries to be gentle with me once he's bathed us both with a lubricating spell. Fuck that. I need hard and furious. Once he's past that first ring of muscle, I push back on him. It's a burning, aching kind of pleasure he gives me as his strokes become surer.

I don't know how he does it, but he says my name, making it a sexy hiss.

Fucking buggering hell, he's brilliant! He's in me and around me, and the hot length of him feels so right, especially when I feel his fingers, the ones that used to write such hateful things on my essays, wanking me to granite hardness. He strokes down and catches me in that spot that makes my toes curl and draws a deep growl from my throat. Soon, too soon, I feel the rush of heat that gathers at the base of my skull and radiates down. In a wet spill of warmth, I come over those potions stained fingers as he grunts a kind of surprised sound.

I feel him boil out of my arse and spill down my thighs. I turn my head to see what his 'O' face looks like. It's beautiful, and I want to kiss him, but I suddenly feel shy. I lay there, cheek pressed against the filthy floor for a few minutes, gasping for breath. He lays his sweaty head on my back, his fingers splayed across my ribs, and his lips on my skin. I am frustrated as I think of how much I want from him. It would be nice to go up to his bed, lie in his arms, and kiss him. I've never wanted that before with another person. It's always been about the sex and screw the cuddle afterwards. I want to share that closeness with him, but knowing what I do of him, I decide to scoot out from under him. Maybe, if we do this again, I'll get him to give me that.

I stand, pulling my pants, and then my trousers, up over my hips, leaving the flap open so that they gap a little and ride low on the bones there.

He's watching me again. It seems to be what he does. He asks, "What of Miss Granger?"

"What of her? We're friends, nothing more. It's not her I want." I feel a little angry that he thinks I would cheat on her. I'm not like that. I may be hot-headed, and more often than not a conclusion-jumper, but I'm not a cheat. I pick up my shirt. I glance up, and his eyes are on me again in that measuring, weighing way. I get the feeling he wants more of an explanation, but he's not going to get it. I don't want to see him smirk when he hears what she said about me. That's definitely not a post-shagging topic of conversation.

I throw the shirt down again. It's too fucking hot in this little shack for me to want to wear it, and besides, he's just seen me with much less on. I go to the box of books and decide to finish what we've started.

A few minutes later, after he's buttoned and laced and girded himself against me, he says, "I never asked you to do... what we just did, I never wanted anyone to shag me out of pity."

I snort. I can't help myself, his questioning look was about him after all. Poor sod. "I'm not in the habit of having men up my arse out of some misguided sense of duty or pity. I wanted you. It's that simple. I hope we can do it again. You were good at it. I thought you might be."

He's still staring at me and so I say, "Well, are you going to stare at me like a lump, or are you going to help? I would like to at least get the parlour done before I have to leave."

"Don't go," he says, and my heart flutters a bit. I suppose this is also a little about me.

"I won't be gone forever, just 'til tomorrow," I answer. "I need to get a few things if I'm going to stay the night or... longer." I feel my face heat. Damn my fair skin. I want to look like a man of the world in front of him, and I end up looking like an infant. Shite. To make matters worse, I say, "I hope you don't mind."

I don't wait to see his response. I just get back to work.

We finish the books. Tomorrow I plan to Scourgify the floors and do something about the dead flies on the windows. I hope he'll stop me from that, though. I could think of better ways to spend a day than cleaning.

When I leave, I kiss him, loving the feel of his lips against mine. It's all I can do to keep from dragging him up the stairs so he can have me again. I say, after a moment of looking at him, "You're not half-bad to look at, not half-bad at all once you get out of those undertaker robes."

"I am..." he says, "not much."

"Mum told me once that beauty wasn't gold," I say as I take in the shadowed expression that passes across his face. "I think you're gold, Professor. I don't much care about the rest."

"It's Severus, Ronald, after what we just did... what I want... I am Severus." His lashes tilt down over his eyes, they are sooty and dark against his pale skin.

"Yeah," I say, with that heat coming to my face again. I see an answering blush on Sn...Severus' face, so I don't feel so bad. I kiss him again. "Tomorrow then."

I leave, whistling some Celestina Warbeck drivel. I never understood what she was singing about before, all that rot about love and feelings. As I glance back at the dirty brick of Snape's home, I think I might just be learning about them. We'll see what happens, but suddenly, I can't imagine my life without the greasy git.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Please take the time to let me know what you think.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please take the time to let me know what you think.


End file.
